


atlas

by warmth



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, road trip fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-18 09:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1423777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warmth/pseuds/warmth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s only three weeks after he leaves and he breaks his own promise and meets Stiles on the border between Vegas and open road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	atlas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allyasavedtheday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allyasavedtheday/gifts).



> For Ciara, who I lost a bet to. Sorry I'm no good at prompts and people and places and things. 
> 
> *
> 
> Wow, okay, so I took so many liberties with this fic and I literally looked it over once, barely, so if it's super crappy feel free to tell me. Also, in my head I wrote I like it's a little nonlinear, so if the times seem fudgey and weird, that's why. 
> 
> I also made a road trip mix for this [here](http://8tracks.com/e-xhales/atlas-1)!
> 
> If you wanna, you can find me on tumblr [here.](//pillowfortposey.tumblr.com)

It’s only three weeks after he leaves, one after he’s left Argentina, four days since he’s turned his phone off because it’s too hard not to watch for Cora’s name, flashing. Three weeks, and two things happen simultaneously:

He turns the car around, half-way across the Colorado-Kansas middle ground, a big curve and flushes of dirt.

He breaks his own promise and meets Stiles on the border between Vegas and open road.

And he still doesn’t know if those two things were good decisions or not.

 

&

 

Stiles wears a duffel bag and a grin and throws a six pack gone warm into the passenger seat before his body follows. It leaves him a little off, watching his body clamber to fit its own limbs into the passenger seat without grace.

“You good?” The first thing he says to Stiles and he doesn’t know if he regrets it as he raises an eyebrow. He’ll wait a little, see if it comes back and haunts him. That’s the only way to know any regret for certain. After all, Stiles is coming after him now.

The summer is rumored to be hot and long and only just starting. Derek wonders what Stiles thinks he’s doing out here, with him, in the front seat. He hopes he doesn’t think it’s some type of goddamned indie movie adventure.

(He’s waving a CD around from the front of his jeans. Derek is worried.)

(Secretly, he does though. Secretly, he’s hoping for the stupid movie dream, too.)

“Vegas, man.” Stiles says, first, in the parking lot when the silence sits like dust. Derek almost grins, but doesn’t instead. It’s too obvious and Derek likes to pretend that that’s something he isn’t.

(Especially with Stiles. Stiles, for who knows how, can read him like no one’s been able to in a while.)

“Vegas.”

Stiles’ smile widens at his blank expression, like it’s something he missed. Slams his hands down on the dashboard, flat and big and distracting.

“You sure you’re gonna remember this place?” Derek asks, raising an eyebrow. It’s depressingly nondescript. Stiles taps his nose, winks. He’s grown fond of winking.

The Jeep winks, too, under the Nevada sun. Too blue, too dinged up. Derek thinks it was a good choice, a smart choice on the Sheriff’s part. Or maybe on Stiles’. Too blue, too dinged up, the kind of car you can’t steal.

(Too blue, too dinged up. The type of person you can’t fix either. Derek relates. He’s a fan of the car, really, even though he has called it a piece of shit on numerous occasions.)

“I’ll remember it Derek,” Stiles repeats, exasperated. “Now, turn the car on. My pale, fragile skin can only take so much heat.”

**  
**  
  


They started texting in March.

Stiles said, hey this is stiles don’t ask me how I got your number.

Derek asked how he got his number and knew right then that being a little shit was the worst possible route he could’ve taken. It was the type of attitude that attracted Stileses and creatures like him.

It spiralled from there, out and out and out like a hurricane.

**  
**  


 

“Have you ever gambled?” Stiles asks when they find somewhere that doesn’t look too shady. It’s thirty bucks a night and Stiles tries to fork up the cash when they get to the room.

(The exchange goes something like:

“No, Stiles.”

“Why not? This is seriously the only reason I brought money! I cracked into the big account for you!”

Then Derek races him to the counter, wins, and pays.)

 _No_. “Sure.”

Stiles looks over at him, mouth curled something resembling sly. “You’re a lying liar who lies, Hale.”

“This is coming from someone who can’t even drink.” _Legally_ , he adds in his mind and was right to, because Stiles replies:

“Oh, I can drink, buddy.” He opens the beer can like he’s proving a point and maybe he is.

Derek kind of likes it.

**  
**  
  


Stiles pulls a map out of the back of his jeans once he’s emptied out the can, flashes his teeth.

Derek assumes he looks a little shocked, because Stiles says, “Dude, I’m a stress planner. And I’ll tell you, this whole thing has been on my mind for _weeks_.”

Derek doesn’t know if he’ll follow it, says so. The other boy replies, “It’s just a few lines. The whole point of this is to get off ‘em. Only for if we need to get somewhere quick, promise.”

He still isn’t sure, but he says, “Okay. Let’s do this.”

Stiles gives him the first genuine smile of the night.

**  
**  
  


Mid-May.

Stiles texted him: “I have no idea where I’m going to live after this.”

So he said, Beacon Hills, because it was the obvious answer. Stiles said he didn’t want to be stuck in Beacon Hills his whole life and Derek knew he wouldn’t be, right in that moment.

A reply. “So travel. Choose where you like the best.”

“What if I can’t choose?”

“Flip a coin.”

He actually remembered him and Laura doing that, back in the summer with the fog still thick in their throats, the ending of Beacon Hills. There was always fog on the border between Beacon Hills and everywhere else, like even the weather knew it was something that needed to be hidden away and maybe protected a little bit, too.

Laura called heads, for Seattle. Derek said tails, New York City. Laura, unthinkingly, unknowingly, lovingly, still wanted to be close enough to rush down, in case any bones wanted to blow themselves back to life.

Tails, stark against the concrete, three times in a row. The quarter got grimy fast and eventually tinkled down into the grate Laura dropped it too close too, because for all her werewolf instincts, she still couldn’t catch a quarter after she flipped. She watched it roll away and said: “Fuck.” And that was it.

“That’s stupid.” Stiles again. The vibration against his thigh brought him back to focus. “That wouldn’t work.”

He frowned. “Why not? If you love all the places you’re flipping for, you’d end up somewhere nice and you could call it fate or whatever.”

“But you’d always have this sense of regret. Like, if something bad happened, you would always pull a grass-is-greener, you know?”

He thinks about Seattle again, how Laura loved it so bad she couldn’t breathe. How the rain fell on her skin like kisses, how she swore the air was cleaner there than anywhere else, swear to God, Derek. Thinks about how, sometimes, in New York, she would sit at the window, blinds drawn, and prop her head against it and close her eyes and wish it was raining.

Derek doesn’t know he’s hit call until Stiles is saying hello.

“You always have that feeling, no matter where you go.” Derek says down the phone, leaning back into his booth at the diner he’s eating lunch at.

“Where are you now?” Stiles asks abruptly, after several beats of silence.

“El Paso.”

“ _Why_?”

He snorts, thinking about saying, what would you know about El Paso, but knowing better. Stiles has the entire internet at his hands, Derek would bet his life on Stiles knowing at least fifteen facts about the place. “Why not?”

Stiles’ disgruntled noise confirms his theory. “And where are you going… after this?”

“I don’t know, Stiles. Wherever I want.” He rolls his eyes. “Why? Were you planning on tagging along?”

It’s supposed to be a bad joke. Instead, Stiles says, “If you’ll have me.”

**  
**  


 

They buy a pack of cards from the dollar store and Stiles teaches him how to play Heart. In return, he shows Stiles to play poker.

“I know how to play poker.” The boy says in disbelief when he tells him.

“Do you ever win?” He asks, eyes cast towards the cards he’s doling out. Stiles looks away and it’s all the answer he needs. It does make him curious, though. “Not even against Scott?”

(There’s a lot that Scott’s good at, but he thinks he’s best at enjoying other people’s excitement over small things.)

“No.” It’s a little embarrassed, hand scraping over the back of his neck. Derek laughs and scoots closer. Their knuckles brush where they hold their hands.

Stiles beats him ten times in a row after Derek teaches him the right way.

**  
**  
  


The radio is shitty, a lot of the time, they’ve learned. It statics out when they cross borders and Stiles catches him whispering the lyrics under his breath when it happens, top 40 that he’d be ashamed of anywhere but in a car.

Sometimes he laughs, sometimes he jumps in, _I stretched my hands up to the sky, we danced with monsters through the night,_ and they’re laughing about it, singing together. Something Derek didn’t think he’d be doing in a million years, definitely not with Stiles.

The melodies, though, the ones they hum when they run out of lyrics, Stiles dropping his head back and forth until his hair is licked with sweat - those are the soundtracks of his dreams.

**  
**  


 

At the four corners, Stiles makes him take a selfie with him. Says if they put their heads together laying down they’re technically in all four states. He thinks the other tourists get kinda pissed off about their legs getting in the way while they walk. Peruse. Whatever the fuck tourists do.

“Hey, Stiles,” He says, lazily, helping him off his back. The sun is warm on half his face, nice. “Are we tourists?”

“You bet your ass we are.” Stiles laughs and they both know he doesn’t really mean it. They don’t really know what it’s like, being, having people to travel with. The sheriff hates confined spaces and his mother died too soon before Stiles could go anywhere past the fringes of San Francisco.

(There’s a lot of things the whiskey can make talk. Stiles is one of them.)

And Derek, the only person he got out of Beacon Hills with was Laura and she wasn’t much of a lingerer, always said, “We gotta get somewhere, Derek, the open road is the least safe place to be.”

(He misses her to hell and back for it.)

“Good,” Derek replies, voice liquid and sarcastic. “I’ve _always_ wanted to see the Grand Canyon.”

Stiles grabs every single brochure from the information desk and taps them all to the dashboard in retaliation. He rips off twelve before he makes slots for his hands on the steering wheel.

 

**  
**  


They end up in southern Arizona. Stiles hates it, hates the desert, hates the dry heat, hates the kicks of dust and the scorpions in the beds.

(They both scream like girls when one comes skittering out from under Stiles’ duffel. Derek picks it up and gets stung. Stiles doesn’t, and doesn’t. He smashes it between his palms watches its guts spill out with a strange sort of satisfaction. Stiles watches him. “Dude, gross.”)

They hate it, that’s it. So they leave quickly, after a day. Head back up towards Reno, because Nevada made them feel something good. They take a pitstop at some small town with one Starbucks and four places closed down around it. The girl at the front blushes, slides her number over the counter as he’s ordering for the both of them.

“I swear, I’m gonna start collecting these,” Stiles crows when he sees the slip of paper on their walk back, taking the coffee and sloshing it down his throat. He chokes a little.

Derek says, “That’s what you get.” The engine starts up, hard and quick and warm. “Maybe you’ll burn your throat enough times that you just can’t talk anymore.”

“Stop acting like you don’t enjoy my witty commentary, Hale.” He throws his seatbelt on, carelessly. His shirt’s red today, matches his lips and the fleshy underbellies of his palms and the way Derek’s heart flushes when it looks at him.

“It’s not acting, I promise.”

Even he hears his own heartbeat stutter over the words. Stiles gives him a smug glance and rolls the window down.

**  
**  


 

Seattle. Somehow, they’ve warped around and around. Stiles laughs when the rain starts hitting the car, windshield wipers moving furiously and something inside nudges at his ribcage.

“We’re gonna go see the space needle,” Stiles demands, kicking his feet up onto the dashboard, avoiding their stupid brochure collage. Derek tries to bat them down and gets a scoff and dirty chuck in the face.

“You’re like a small child.” Derek tells him, wrangling the gearshift into the right place.

“Not in the pa - ”

“Don’t. Don’t even finish that.”

Stiles snickers and shifts a few of the glossy sheets around. “Seriously, though, Derek. We’re hitting up all Seattle has to give. I hear it’s nice.”

Derek gives the window a pointed look, the waterfall drifting down a clear sign in the opposite direction. He rolls his eyes. “Not in weather, obviously. Even though I know you like the rain, don’t even.”

“I don’t - I don’t actually like the rain.” He tells Stiles when he's parked by the side of the road (Stiles set on going exploring), frowning up at the sky, charged electric and grey. Stiles’ lip curls up and he clamps a hand over the curve of his shoulder, fingers pushed up against his pulse.

“Yeah, I know.”  

An umbrella comes flying for his face as Stiles runs straight into the storm. Derek tries not to smile as he follows behind him, umbrella in hand. It’s bright, bright yellow.

**  
**  
  


He lets Stiles drive down to Oregon, watching him intently.

Stiles has grown out a lot of things - grown out _of_ a lot of things. His body was getting too small to fit him so it expanded and expanded and Derek doesn’t know when he started noticing the way Stiles’ waist fell in or how his shoulders lined up with the width of the beds or his hands looked opening the door.

(That’s a lie; everyone knows there was something there, that first moment.)

(Sometimes, with the way he looks at Derek, he thinks Stiles knows, too.)

**  
**  
  


“We should visit Hawaii,” Stiles says, like he has plans.

“Can’t drive a car over the ocean.”

Stiles grins, nudges him and shrugs on the wrong coat. Derek doesn’t correct him, likes the way it smells, scents all mixed up.

“I think you could do it.” His face is thoughtful, but his voice drops in amusement when he says, “Be the alpha roadtripper.”  

Derek rolls his eyes and pushes through into the Target they stopped at. (Stiles was complaining about the utter lack of snack food in his car.)

Stiles throws himself at a cart and demands that he and Derek race them, c’mon, it’s not like there’s that many people here, it’s eleven at night. He sighs, but they always end up doing it, grabbing whatever they can - candy, stickers, nerf guns, random miscellaneous shit that’s starting to pile up in the trunk. Wants they can’t help but indulge this late at night.

Stiles gives him a wry look over his shoulder at the cash register in front of him, winks like the shit that he is and sprints out the front door. Derek throws a fifty down on the counter and follows after.

“Sir - ” The employee is holding a ten over his head, waving like a flag.

“Keep the change!” He has a lot to get rid of anyway.

Stiles, under the streetlamps, his skin painted gold and black, bags in hand, grumbling. “I didn’t have the keys.”

Derek laughs and it feels like he’s giving Stiles something, something important, twisting the key in the lock, helping him in, helping him home.

**  
**  
  


“I’ve always wanted to go tornado chasing.” Stiles says through Oklahoma, and that’s where he draws the line.

“No, Jesus Christ.”

“Actually, I’m Stiles,” He grins, like the joke is something new. “But why not? Your, you know, werewolfiness would be perfect for it!”

“ _How_.” Someone cuts him off and he lays on the horn. It’s a murky grey out on the horizon, an obscure smudge on the distance they’re heading towards. The roads are long and empty and Stiles likes to stick his hands out the window and close his eyes.

Derek never really knows what Stiles is doing. He’s not sure he wants to.

“You wouldn’t die if you got really close! You could, like, video tape right next to it.”

“I’m not _invincible_.”

“Practically! I’ve seen you impaled so many times, dude, I’m not even sure how you’re still standing.”

He has a point. Derek has realized he’s pretty much indestructible after all the has happened.

“I’m not looking to _push it_.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Stiles falls back into his seat and smiles. “You have to admit it’d be pretty cool, though.”

“It’d be pretty cool.”

“Stop being sarcastic! It’s not a good color on you!”

**  
**  
  


“So is this living up to all your road trip fantasies?” Derek asks, running his fingers across several George R.R. Martin titles in a Detroit bookstore.

“Is it living up to all of yours?” Derek hates when Stiles does that - answer his question with the _same question_ , how does that solve anything, really.

He shrugs. “Never really had any.”

“How?”

“Nobody really glamorized road trips for me, I guess. And I didn’t read a lot of the novels or whatever that had them.”

“You’ve never read a road trip novel?” Stiles gapes at him before shooting off into the stacks. They’re sad, lopsided things that make Derek itch to soothe, somehow.

Jack Kerouac, Neil Gaiman, John Green, Libba Bray, they all come flying towards him.

“This always made me want to go on one, you know?” Stiles says carefully, staring down at _On the Road_. It’s a battered thing. All the books Stiles buys end up weatherbeaten, anyway, over-highlighted and torn up on the good pages.

“ _I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up_.” He recites in heavy nostalgia, dragging his fingers over the pages, ruffling them gently. “It was my mom’s favorite. I read it a lot after.”

“After.” Derek repeats. He gets it.

Derek buys the book and that night, they cover the pages together, Stiles’ head on his stomach mouthing the best words into his t-shirt, Derek’s voice gone worn and rasping as the spine.

**  
**  
  


Stiles finds a cat in the dumpster outside the pizza place they eat at in Salem. (He was insistent on visiting “witch town. With all the _witches_.”) It’s a mangy thing streaked in sunset and it doesn’t bare its teeth when Derek gets close so they stick it in the backseat as they drive off.

Stiles insists on calling it - _her_ \- Orange Juice. And Derek. Derek realizes that he lets him do whatever he wants, even when he thinks he doesn’t. Whatever. The cat likes him better, anyways.

**  
**  


 

Iowa. Stiles says there’s nothing in Iowa but stars and Derek says how do you know, but they lay a blanket out over the hood and stay up to look at them anyway.

“What do you think we’re made out of?” Stiles asks, quietly. His voice hasn’t been so quiet in a long, long time. Derek wonders what he’s afraid of disturbing and thinks he’s afraid of disturbing it, too.

“Skin. Bones.” He knows this stuff. The teenager rolls his head to look at him, eyes disbelieving.

“I thought you’d be more of a romantic. C’mon. What do you really think we’re made out of?”

“Magic. Stars. Too much time in the belly. Spoiled blood. Fuck, Stiles, I don’t know.”

“There it is,” Stiles grins, throwing out his hand and clapping Derek in the chest. “That’s what I was waiting for. The _romantic_ in you, buried beneath all the brood and dark clothing. And the wannabe bad boy thing you're still _trying_ to have going.”

“Barely any of that description even applies anymore.” Derek grumbles, stretching his arms out. Stiles’ eyes follow the movement and it makes something warm settle in his gut like a handful of pebbles.

“Are you finally admitting that it was right at one point?”

“I can’t get you to believe otherwise, can I?”

Stiles laughs, looks back up at the sky and leans his head into Derek’s, an affectionate sort of headbutt.

“No,” He throws a leg over Derek’s and grins. “You really can’t.”

**  
**  


“I don’t think I can do this.” Derek admits, stupidly, at the front of the line to some ride - Maverick or Millennium Force or _something_. His gut feels like it’s trying be worn reversible and his senses have gone into overdrive. The perfume the girl behind them is wearing, the feel of the man in front of them swinging his hands and brushing Derek’s leg every few seconds, a baby’s rattle - it’s setting him on edge.

He hates amusement parks, but Stiles doesn’t so, _somehow_ , he let himself be dragged along to Cedar Point.

Stiles twists his cap backwards and crosses his arms. “No way. You’re riding. We didn’t stand out in the heat just for you to wuss out at the last minute, Hale. Come on.”

“But - ”

“Come on.” And then he’s being pulled along by the sleeve and a girl in a red vest is checking the metal bar pulled down in front of them.

“I’m going to throw up on you.” Derek hisses into Stiles’ ear, hands gone white around the safety bar.

“Oh, Derek, don’t talk dirty to me in public. Some people are much more vanilla than us.” Stiles announces loudly, laughing when Derek shoves at him and a mother gives him a dirty look. Her fault, she shouldn’t be on a ride like this with her snotty little kid anyway.

He’s so busy arguing with Stiles and internally cursing the people around him he doesn’t notice he’s falling until, well, he’s _falling_. Before he can work himself back into his tightly wound terror, Stiles grabs his hand and throws it into the air. He yells out on instinct, happily, for the first time in a long time, turning into Stiles’ touch, letting it guide him down from the high of it all.

“Told you!” The boy shouts and Derek holds his hand down onto his head, laughing.

 

**  
**  


“You think you’ll ever get married?”

“Once,” Derek says. It’s dark and Stiles is curious and that curiosity is a hunger he doesn’t know how to feed. “Once, I thought I would. My mom talked about marriage like it was a fairytale, even though it - wasn’t, for her.”

“I’d be the best fucking husband, man,” Stiles says, fiercely. “I’d wed the shit out of you. Let’s get hitched, Derek. I’ll show you what married life is all about.”

His heart beats out of his chest for half a second before the boy bursts out laughing. He shoves his shoulder and hopes that his stupid GPS of a heart hasn’t already programmed Stiles in.

(It has, he knows it has, but he likes to think there’s hope against being damned against all else. He’s tired of his life being a series of tragic events.)

Stiles, smiling, breath coming slow and small, feels like a miracle.

**  
**  
  


Stiles has a thing for rolling all the windows down when they’re driving, letting Orange Juice prop her face out the window and doing the same, the wind running against his skin.

“Try it, Derek,” He says, when they’ve switched places, pale hands enticing around the steering wheel.

“And walk myself into all the dog jokes you have planned? No thanks.”

Stiles chuckles, shoulders scrunching up. Half his shirt is pulled up and putting inches of skin like miles out in front of him. Derek kind of wants to drag his stubble over it, watch it go pink under the attention.

“Walk yourself into,” He grins under his breath, before saying, “Yeah, I did have a lot ready. But do it, swear to God, it feels like freedom.”

He gets that starry look in the eye, like he’s in love. Derek wants that look, wants to know what it feels like on his face, so he complies. And it does, it feels like freedom, so he fits the tops of his shoulders through too, lets the road take him as he closes his eyes.  

“Might as well stick your tongue out, Derek. Taste the wind.” Stiles laughs, predictable. Derek does it though, and a little part of him doesn’t even know why - maybe because he feels chainless and untouchable with this empty road and a car going 75, rattling the windows against his skin.

It’s worth it, because he swears Stiles crows so loud it drowns out the radio for three miles straight.

**  
**  
  


Derek has only seen Stiles kiss one person before - a girl, a pretty girl, a nerdy girl with knee high socks and hipster glasses. He didn’t even kiss her, really. No, not in earnest and definitely not first. There was a creased confusion between his eyebrows and a hand hovering awkward.

The way his mouth presses now, it’s all confidence, with a man who has dark hair and darker eyes.

Even sloppy and drunk and with another person, Derek can tell. Derek can tell it would feel like attention. That it would feel _good_ , that tongue on his tongue, those teeth against his bottom lip. He wonders, sipping idly at his Manhattan, who Stiles practiced with, who he practiced for.

Stiles goes home with him and Derek leaves with himself. Walks alone, hands in his pockets, eyebrows too close together on his forehead, and wonders what they’re doing. What Stiles looks like underneath hot, desperate hands. Against white teeth, skin red from stubble burn. The thought makes him feel sick and he wanders back the way he came, intent on rewatching Game of Thrones and blocking the ideas out of his overactive mind.

When Stiles stumbles back into the motel room, three in the morning - Derek up waiting for him, reading, he’s covered in hickies and is saying, “God, get me out of this state.” so they grab their bags and pile into the car again.

The radio says, they want us to surrender, want us to surrender, but I could go all night - and screeches out. Stiles turns the dial down so far, even Derek can’t pick out a sound.

**  
**  


 

“Pull over, pull over!” Stiles says the next morning, still a little too hungover. Derek rolls to a stop and opens the door for him.

“Don’t you dare slam it,” He warns as he passes Derek and walks out to the barrier, perches himself on it. His shirt feels warm where Stiles’ shoulder brushed.

“What the hell are you doing.”

“Watching the sun rise. Never woke up early enough to see it back in Beacon.” He’s a silhouette against the sky when he twists his neck to look at him, swinging his legs over the edge. Derek gets that grip of fear he used to, seeing Cora climb too high in the trees, seeing his mother leave in the middle of the night and come back bloodstained.

“Don’t fall.”

“I know you won’t let me, dude, stop being so - ” Stiles frowns when he pulls himself up beside him, closer than friends would, uncomfortably close. Derek nearly inches away before Stiles’ hand clamps over his upper arm, fingertips slipping up to hold at his t-shirt. “I trust you.”

“Me too.”  Derek holds Stiles' hand against his skin, pressing it deep enough for him to feel later, chest gone warm. “I trust you a lot.”

“Stop being sappy, I’m trying to enjoy this stupid cliche.” Stiles snorts, turning his palm over and twisting their fingers together gently. Derek thinks he’s in over his head.

**  
**  
  


Once, Stiles sent him a photo, all bloodied up and he was so panicked he swore his heart was going to jump right out of his chest. _  
_

It was a Halloween costume back then, one that he said Allison had fun putting on him, that the blood glowed in the dark.

(There was a blacklight party, in his loft. Derek wonders if the place’ll still smell like anything but sweat and hormones. Wonders if he could still pick Boyd and Cora out of the wreck, at least.)

(He hates that he thinks about the place like it’s somewhere he’s planning to go back to.)

There’s blood on his face again and a drunken smile, too, plastered on over all of it. “I like ‘em hard to get.” Stiles makes a wildly exaggerated cat sound and a little claw, over Derek’s heart.

“I guess you’ve always had bad taste, then.” Derek grins when he tries to smush up against Derek’s neck, in protest. Aggressive cuddling.

“‘Hey! I chose - I chose you, pikachu. I chose you, so don’t tell me my taste is - bad, because I chose you.”

He swallows, hard, hopes that Stiles doesn’t feel his adam’s apple bobbing and remembers it in the morning. He knows it shouldn’t hurt, that Stiles is saying this after hitting on someone else, but it does, badly.

Derek says, “Shut up, Stiles.” because it’s the only thing that’ll cough itself up. Stiles laughs and laughs and doesn’t get it and Derek reels him in, raw, and they walk out together.

**  
**  


 

Stiles looks at him so long sometimes that Derek wants to pull him in and shake them into something bigger, better than what they are right now, this weird more-than-friends but not quite. He doesn't know what they are, but he thinks it's nice and he doesn't know if that niceness is something he wants to jeopardize. 

**  
**  
  


The third time they hit a bar, Stiles asks him to dance. Derek doesn’t say no.

Actually, it starts with a drink, one too many for Stiles, and three too many for Derek, the kind that makes him dizzy even without wolfsbane. Stiles asks him before he throws a couple of petals into his drink, though, too.

“No date rape here, dude. Consent is all the rage.” He grins and Derek is addicted to that grin, so he says, yeah, alright, do it.

“Fuck, you’re out of it, aren’t you?” Stiles presses, like he isn’t, body moving restless against his own, hip to hip, chest to chest. He’s taller than Derek now and he has to tilt a little to look at him, his sweaty hair plastered against his head. The movement makes his head swirl and he laughs like he’s choking.

Stiles kisses him, slowly. The feel of his lips falls over him like a storm coming on, again and again until they’re a single entity and they’re stumbling out of the bar.

“I don’t wanna sleep with you when you’re like this.” Stiles whispers in the backseat of the Toyota, “Stop making it so hard.”

Derek groans and knows, somewhere in his foggy mind, that he’s right. He detaches his lips from Stiles’ neck slowly, pressing small, wet kisses there until he finds enough will in him to stop. He throws Stiles the keys.

“In the morning then.” Derek slurs and falls asleep in the backseat.

(They don’t, in the morning, but Stiles kisses Derek awake and they hold hands when they leave the motel, so he thinks it’s a win, all in all.)

**  
**  
  


It’s seven hours from Massachusetts to Florida and Stiles bets he can get there in six on Icona Pop and Smallpools and three bags of trail mix.

“Okay.” Derek says and clambers into the back, letting Orange Juice curl up on his chest. Pulls the ratty superman blanket they got in San Antonio over them both. “I’m gonna sleep.”

“Good. Sleep."

“Are you gonna lie about your time if I do?” Derek asks, hiding his smile in the upholstery. He props bare feet up against the foggy window.

Stiles revs the engine and pulls out of the motel parking lot, into red lights and angry horns.

“Fuck you.”

(Stiles lies about his time, Derek knows; he woke up with the drive still long ahead the radio blaring _but I miss the way you feel, no one will ever know_ and the road stretching far, flashing hour five. He doesn’t have it in him to care, though, and lets Stiles lie to them both for the night.)

**  
**  
  


The first thing they do is wade out into the ocean, Stiles running - and tripping - over white sand gone stark under the moon.

He wonders if his skin tastes like the salt or the stars and decides both is a better answer than any.

“God, I love the beach.” Stiles sighs, sinking down into the sand and pulling Derek with him. The water creeps up to their toes and pulls back, twice, three times. Stiles wiggles his fingers where they’re resting on Derek’s stomach. “I haven’t been to the beach in two years. Me and Scott drove down once when I first got my license. Been too busy since.”

Derek blinks water droplets off his eyelashes. “Do you miss him?”

“Not right now.” The boy smiles and rolls into him, over him, shoves a handful of sand down his swim trunks. “Race you to the pier, buttface!”

He faceplants and makes Derek carry him the rest of the way. Derek grins, smug, and thinks, _karma_.

**  
**  
  


“I don’t want to sleep alone tonight.” Stiles says, hair wet, and climbs up into his bed, blanket-cape twisted around him tight. They just finished _the Conjuring_ and Stiles spooks easily but he still insisted. Said it was “sleepover 101, Derek.”

He accidentally steps on his leg in the dark, letting out a whoosh of air and surprise and Derek sits up to catch his body before his head cracks on the wall.

“You’re a safety hazard,” Derek says and rearranges his limbs until they’re soft and tangled. Stiles sticks his cold feet into the bend of Derek’s knees in retaliation.

“And you’re warm. We’ve all got labels. Who cares.” Stiles mumbles into him when he realizes he can use Derek’s body as a personal furnace, arms curling around him.

“Just sleep.”

He wakes up with Stiles’ lips on his neck, mouthing lazily. It brings around a warm burn and Stiles’ nose trails up flat to his ear and settles there, the skin caught in lips like a crossfire. His breath smells like gum and stale beer, but the rest of him is all soap and spice and he leans into it.

“Go get me food.” The boy murmurs into his skin when he realizes Derek’s awake. When he leans over his cheeks are hot and his hair fans out into Stiles’ eyes. It’s terrible and Derek finds it incredibly attractive so he gives into his whims for a moment and brushes a hand through it.

Derek leans in, eyeing Stiles' lips. He sighs into it and his eyes flutter to half-mast.

“Get your own food.” Derek leans away grinning and the boy’s face flops forward, headbutting him.

“You did not just Hans me!”

Derek pulls on a shirt, smug, and holds out his hand. “I call truce? We both get food, I pay, we rent Frozen from the place downstairs?”

Stiles knocks his hand out of the way, muttering, “ _Hans’d_. By Derek!”

**  
**  
  


Stiles gets food poisoning from some Thai place in Miami. They pull over and the retching sounds hurt Derek’s ears. When he can breathe, talk, slump against Derek’s side, Stiles says, “Aren’t you supposed to be holding my hair back or something?"

“I think holding the rest of you counts.” He tightens his grip around Stiles’ waist.

“Way to ruin my drunk white girl moment, Derek.”

“You weren’t even drunk.” There’s amusement there and Stiles latches onto it like flies and flames.

“I could’ve been! Who knows what they put in my water.”  

Derek snorts, incredulous, and runs a few fingers through Stiles’ hair, tugging lightly. “There. Happy?”

Stiles leans into him bodily as if his strings have been cut, limbs limp, and nuzzles his face into Derek’s shoulder. “No. I hope your shirt smells like puke after this.”

Grinning, he rubs a hand over Stiles’ back while he has it within reach and they watch the cars pass and the world turn and they wait.  

**  
**  


 

“So, we should go to DisneyWorld.” Stiles suggests, like he’s being subtle, pulling his knees up to his chin.

“Okay.” He doesn’t even try and fight anymore. Stiles turns to him, as if he hasn’t noticed that Derek is wrapped around his little finger.

“That was so fast, man,” Stiles’ grin is bright as lightning. Derek thinks, _I did that_ , and gets a little caught up. “I didn’t know you’d just…”

“Just?” He raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t take his eyes off the road. Stiles is quiet.

“Nothing. Just - just. You know what I mean.”

He doesn’t, but if Stiles thinks he does, he’ll go along. In the morning, he circles Orlando until Stiles tells him where to pull in - it takes them an hour longer than it should and they end up yelling at each other. Stiles’ anger evaporates when he looks up at the entrance, the light in his eyes entirely unbroken. A fresh seal of happiness. Derek grabs his hand and tugs him forward from where he’s rooted to the spot. He barely moves. Sighing, he moves around him and hefts his body up onto his shoulders.  

“Come on, loser,” Derek looks up at him as he starts walking. Stiles throws his fists into the air and laughs. “You’re the one that dragged me here. We’re gonna make the most of it.”  

 

 

 

They stop in New York City, briefly. Derek visits his old apartment and Stiles doesn’t insist on coming, not with his mouth at least, but his footsteps aren’t quiet when he follows him up the stairs. He’s a constant presence against his back as they walk through his old life.

He fidgets so hard Derek shakes when he breaks the silence. “It’s big.”

“For New York.” Derek says, eyes downcast. He runs his fingers over the edge of an old table they bought for two bucks, collecting its accumulated dust.

“Does it still… Do you miss it?”

Derek looks around and can see Laura’s ghost in everything, in the kitchen and the floorboards and the charge of the air. “Of course,” His voice breaks and he tries to pull it back, tighten it up. “Of course I do.”

Stiles watches him, sad in the eyes and in the curve of his mouth, before heading off into one of the bedrooms. Derek doesn’t even try and follow him, just sits at one of their old chairs and tries not to reminisce.

Stiles thrusts a bundle of blankets into his hands, Laura’s music box, a folder of papers. “Here, I think this is all the important stuff. Now, let’s get get the fuck out, this is too sad for me.”

“Yeah.” Derek says, and lets Stiles take his hand as they leave. The boy’s fingers are heavy and warm in the spaces between his and it’s the kind of feeling he doesn’t want to leave behind here, in the death, in the dark. His old life shuts its doors behind them.

 

**  
**  


The car runs out of gas when they reach Portland. Stiles calls Maine ‘carnie town’ and Derek laughs until he cries as Stiles imitates fingers like cigars and a lack of teeth. They attend a lobster festival somewhere close to the border between it and New Hampshire in the pouring rain. Stiles gets another tourist - it’s the only word they can come up with for themselves, even if they don’t believe it’s all that true - to take a picture of them, mouths buttery, wearing bright yellow rain ponchos from the convenience store.

There’s a rickety Ferris wheel flashing its lights through the gloom. Stiles says he hasn’t seen one that pretty in a while, so they grab a handful of tickets for five bucks and spend them all on bad shooting games and rides on it during the intermissions.

“When’s the last time you’ve been on a Ferris wheel?” Stiles asks on their third ride, knocking his knuckles against the dirty white plastic benches they’re seated on. Derek hesitates, slightly.

“I was fourteen and my mom wanted to go upstate - pack politics or something, I don’t really remember,” He does remember the ride thick with hunger and him sleeping across his brother’s shoulder and his sister’s legs. Remembers the trees passing like bullet trains. “Ren - Renier, my older brother - took us to this little carnival a town away. I think my mom and the other alpha were fighting. I was scared of heights.”

“And you’re not anymore.” Stiles says, and Derek can’t tell if it’s a question or not.

“And I’m not anymore.” He confirms, to be certain. A little tension goes out of Stiles’ shoulders and it makes his mood jump, that Stiles cares enough about his well being to be comforted by what he said. The boy sticks his feet against Derek’s knees, muddying up his jeans. He thinks it’s an excuse to pretend he doesn’t care and grins a little.

They leave with a teddy bear Stiles made him win at some balloon dart game and a sticker across his back window broadcasting that life is for deep kisses, strange adventures, midnight swims, and rambling conversations. Derek says the sticker is stupid and Stiles kisses him long enough to prove him wrong.

**  
**  
  


They get pulled over on an empty road, sirens blaring behind them. Stiles says, “Gun it. Wait no, dude, that’s for us, those are the police, oh god, my dad’s gonna kill me.”

“He knows the police force of,” Derek squints out the window as he pulls over. There is no signage around here, apparently. “Wherever we are?”

“Yes!” Stiles’ voice goes comically squeaky. “Probably not. But you never know with Stilinskis. Stilinskis - can’t be trusted, man.”

“Did you just say you can’t be trusted?”

“Not me - Well, I’m a Stilinski, so maybe me - ”

Thankfully, the police officer knocks on his window, halting their argument. Stiles has gone full-on deer in headlights.

“Way to look guilty, Stiles,” He whispers as he leans over and grabs at the glove box.

“License and registration.” The officer says, obviously annoyed. Derek hands it over and tries to smooth his face into something less severe. From the way Stiles’ body shakes with laughter against his side, it’s not working out.

Another person comes up behind the first officer, whispers something into his ear and squeezes his shoulder. Visibly relieved, the first officer hands off Derek’s papers and turns away.

The other man grins, blond hair falling into his face. “Sorry about my partner, he’s having a rough day. I’m gonna write you a ticket for speeding. I hate to do it, but I’ve given away all my freebies to people more pathetic-looking than yourselves.

Derek takes the ticket obligingly, chancing a glance at Stiles. He looks thoughtful, staring at his own hand wrapped around Derek’s arm.

“Ya’ll have a good day.”

The blond slings an elbow around the other officer’s neck when he reaches where he’s waiting, knocking their heads together. Derek watches them walk away and Stiles grins. “Did that remind you of us or _what_?”

“Or what.” Derek replies, rolling his eyes and maneuvering them back onto the road, handing his license off to Stiles.

“Why do I always have to clean up after you?” Stiles gripes as he takes the papers.

“Are you serious.”

They slap around a few times before Stiles threatens to start yelling about how he’s been “kidnapped.” Derek hates the way his palms get sweaty watching the boy relax into his seat, grinning, body open - looking at him is walking into a storm he knows he won’t survive.

**  
**  
  


“What are we doing Stiles?”

Derek expects some sarcastic, smug answer, so he doesn’t look over. Instead, he gets, “Airing ourselves out.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He asks because he doesn’t get it.  Or he does, but maybe not the way Stiles gets it and that’s what he really want to know. Stiles flops his head in his direction, tries for a flick of the wrist. It comes out half-hearted and a little sad.

“You know what it means. Airing ourselves out. We stink. Reek, actually. Reek of Beacon fucking Hills. Did you know everybody dies in Beacon Hills?”

“Yeah,” Derek replies, because he does. He knows, god, does he know. Death, he thinks, is the only thing he has been intimate with for a long, long time. “I know.”

“Good. I know you know. Don’t ask dumb questions, you’re smarter than dumb questions.”

“You’re smarter than dumb road trips,” He points out and then they laugh until it hurts.

**  
**  
  


They drag a dead body off the side of the road by mangled wrists and Stiles grumbles, “I thought we were done with this, I thought that was why we came out here - ”

It was and it is, but, “We can’t just leave him in the road to get more torn up, Jesus Christ, Stiles. It’s probably just a hit and run anyway.”

“Since when did you start caring about people more than me?”

_When I didn’t have any left._

(Another lie, he has Stiles now, Derek thinks. A little bit. In the way he looks at me, over and over.)

“Shut up, Stiles.”

It draws a laugh and a punch to the shoulder as he dials 911 and Derek thinks, yeah, just a little bit, and then a little bit more than that.

**  
**  
  


“I like that,” Stiles says, grinning and taking his ear between his fingers. They’re stuck somewhere in the halfway between Georgia and South Carolina.

“Like _what_?” Derek grumbles, cheeks hot.

“When you blush!” His mouth is very, very close and - oh, god that’s his _mouth_. Derek hisses as Stiles’ teeth graze the skin, lightly.

“Stop that.” He hisses. “I’m trying to drive.”

Stiles grins. “Stop driving then.”

And of course it turns into a game of weird, sexual chicken. It always does, with Stiles.

He loses, but Stiles hits his head on the top of the roof, toppling out of his seat, and Derek laughs so hard they both don’t get what they want for another thirty minutes.

**  
**  
  


They fuck in the back of the car behind the movie theater because - just because. Derek doesn’t know who started it, but he thinks it was Stiles. Hopes it was. Doesn’t hope for anything more.

The mouth, hot and heavy on his neck tells him: _it doesn’t get better than this._

**  
**  
  


“Where do they think you are?” Derek asks one night on a rickety bed and cold sheets, too tired not to. Stiles doesn’t look away from the screen of his phone. The case is a little battered, but it’s better than the last one.

Derek remembers, vividly, how that phone died.

“Summer camp.”

“Just ‘summer camp’?”

Stiles snorts, turns off the phone, puts it on the bedside table. Something about the motion settles him.

“You know when I go big, I go big.”

He’s an elaborate person, that’s why. Stiles likes a fuss. The thick of things, the feeling of wind on his skin and danger pressed up against his spine, begging to chomp him into dust.

Derek’s eyes crinkle at the corner of his eyes when he smiles, Stiles says sometimes, when they’re a little lost and their bodies have gone sore from being in the car so long. He thinks that’s what they’re doing now, the crinkling, thinking about Stiles, puzzling over him.

“I know.”

“And I said I was gonna visit campuses while I was out here.”

Derek doesn’t ask where he wants to go, even though he does want to cough up the ones he used to look at out onto their scatterbrained itinerary, and Stiles doesn’t tell him. Instead, he lets his body fall open, lets Stiles mark it up like a road map, watches the places his mouth travels disappear. In the morning, he’ll think about letting Stiles go. He can’t follow him into his future and he knows that.

The next day, he kisses Stiles’ sleeping hands and circles San Francisco and Ithaca and Boston on the map before going to get them coffee.

**  
**  
  


It’s been over a month and they still visit bars and Stiles has the occasional hook-up when they’re fighting and Derek is stuck trying to figure out how to say “please stop being other people’s, too.”

 

**  
**  


In truth, Derek doesn’t think Stiles can be anyone’s, except maybe his father’s, maybe Scott’s, and then only by blood, by sheer will to be.

He’s too wild for that, too sharp around the edges for anyone to blanket them with their own, too distracted by the things out the window that drive past him, or that he drives past. Sometimes it’s both, sometimes things are going that way when he’s going this way and Stiles sticks his hand out and waves, waves, crashing up to meet them.

Derek doesn’t think Stiles can be anyone’s, but he still wants and hopes and prays and thinks about the open road they ate up together. Thinks that maybe sharing a meal counts for points and those points are added on by the mile.

Or maybe nothing. Derek just likes having him around and sometimes they give open mouthed kisses over the gearshift, sometimes and sometimes and Derek thinks, “I wonder what a future would be like with this thing pretending to be a boy.”  

Stiles answers that the way he always does, with his loud laughter and his jittering limbs. It would be exactly the same: unsettled and frustrating and overwhelmingly good.

“ _I am lost in a world I do not know, a weary soul discarded_.” Stiles sings quietly, taking his hand and pulling it into his lap. Derek grounds himself in that hold, pushes his forehead up against Stiles’ temple, and keeps driving.

**  
**  
  


They don’t talk about what they’re gonna do when this is all over, when their separation is more than a few rooms as a result of their irritation at each other, more than the miles one of them can walk before the other catches up in the car.

(Usually, it’s Stiles doing the walking. Derek always chases after, likes the way Stiles tilts his head up, too proud to run his feet into dust just because he’s upset. Stiles doesn’t chase, though. Stiles waits for him on the hood, shoes toed off onto the road, hands in his pockets. Derek thinks he knows that he’ll always come back, thinks he’s waiting for Derek to stop chasing, too.)

Stiles kisses him when he returns this time, hands curling in the hair at the nape of his neck. Derek wedges himself into the space between his legs, hands at Stiles’ waist, opening his mouth to the desperate edge of teeth.

“Why?” He breathes, hands flattening out and slipping up the back of Stiles’ shirt. The hot, bare skin there makes his throat tight.

“What do you mean, why?” Stiles snorts, kissing him again. “Why am I kissing you? Why are you so hot? Why do you have eyes like a dream? Why am I mad you’re mad at me so I think I’m getting back at you by doing this?"

Derek smiles, trails his lips down Stiles’ neck, leaves a trail of burning flames that Stiles’ arches into. “All of them.”

It’s because he knows - he knows that Stiles’ future is right as rain, is too bright for someone like him.

He likes sharing a bed with him, though, the bright boy, and a car and bad music, and if that’s all he can keep, so be it.

**  
**  
  


His car smells like chocolate and Stiles’ soap and his own aftershave. Smells like clean clothing and left over fast food and crisp plastic bags. Smells likes summer and stupidity and old, dusty memories left to tan against the sun.

Stiles turns up the radio, and he spreads the map over the dashboard.

“Where to next, dude?”

Derek moves to reverse out of the parking lot, shrugging. “Wherever you want.”

Their hands tangle over the gearshift.

 

&

The message on the screen flashes _come back_. Simple and needy and Stiles says they don’t have to, they can keep on going and going until they’ve hit everywhere. Pulls a quarter out of his pocket, fingers shaking, says, “Let’s flip and decide where we’re gonna go, Hale. ‘Cause we’ve got everywhere at our fingertips.”

Derek thinks to himself, “Everywhere is with _you_ ,” and says it aloud by accident. Closes his hand over Stiles’ over the coin. It drops down into the gutter between them, skittering against the sides.  

Eventually, Derek stops chasing. And in the end, fittingly, Stiles stops being other people’s.

 


End file.
